domingo, 3 de mayo de 2015

"How to Strum a ukulele" Ukulele lesson by Sierra Hellemans

Strumming a ukulele may seem like a very simple thing, but a surprising number of people get it wrong. There is a specific right way to do it - to make sure you get the best sound possible out of your ukulele and to sound great. This article will go throw the most important aspects of strumming technique to make sure you know exactly how to strum a ukulele to get the sound you're looking for.

Hand Position

In order to get the perfect strumming hand position, make your right hand (or your left hand if you are left-handed) into a loose fist. Make sure you're not holding it too tight. You want your hand to be comfortable in this shape as you might have to hold it for a long period of time.

Hold your hand in front of you so it is in front of the area just around the center of your chest. Now extend your index (pointer) finger so you are pointing in the direction of your left nipple. You should find that your thumb is resting on top of your index finger (somewhere between the first and second knuckle). This will add a little extra stability to your strumming finger.

Where to Strum

Every ukulele has a sweet spot. This is the area where the ukulele sounds fullest and will give you the best tone. If you strum too close to the bridge it will produce a very thin and tinny sound. You can produce a much more pleasing tone by strumming closer to the fretboard. The idea place is around the place where the neck hits the body of the ukulele.

If you play a larger size of ukulele such as the tenor or baritone, the sweet spot will be more over the sound hole.

Strumming Technique

For the actual strumming itself, you need to ensure two things: that your arm doesn't get tired and that you don't strum more widely than you have to. Both of these can be achieved by ensuring that you strum from the wrist. If you were to strum the ukulele with your whole arm, you would be getting tired before the end of the first song.

Using your wrist also means that you will be able to increase the speed of your strumming as you improve much more efficiently. If you were to strum with your whole arm, it would be much harder to increase strumming speed to match up with the speed of the top players.

It's important to get your ukulele strumming technique right from the beginning. If you pick up bad habits when you start, it will be much harder to change them in the future. Once you have a bad habit ingrained, it's ten times more difficult to get rid of it than it is to set good habits in place from the start. Any time spent practicing your stumming at the beginning stage will pay off many times over for you. It's vital to get it right from the outset or you'll be forever at a disadvantage.